The Catholic Radical

CATHOLIC

RADICAL

“...to foster a society based on creed instead of greed.” Peter Maurin

August/September 2020

Defund the Pentagon

by Claire Schaeffer-Duffy

A large army will not keep a king safe,
nor does the hero escape by his great
strength;
it is a delusion to rely on the horse
for safety,
for all its power, it cannot save.
Psalm 33

¢6rp his July 4th, we are not

celebrating,’ declared an
email from the anti-war group Code
Pink. “We know that no one is free
and liberated until all are — and
war oppresses.” The email went on
to note that in order to realize “true
liberation” we need to defund the
police and the military.

The US spends 55% of its
discretionary budget on the military,
more than the next top seven
countries combined. Add _ together
the defense budgets for China, Saudi
Arabia, Russia, India, UK, France,
and Japan, and the tally still falls well
below what our government doles out
to the Pentagon each year: Nearly $700
billion in 2018. A record-setting $738
billion in 2020.

That staggering allotment apparently
does not satisfy. In February, President
Trump proposed a defense budget of $740
billion for fiscal year 2021. There are, after
all, foreign bases — nearly 800 around the
world — to maintain, a Space Force to
design and develop, weapons contractors
to satiate... . The killing list goes on and
on. In a country where war is an open-
ended proposition, the line items for the
military’s budget can be extensive.

And let’s not forget the nearly $70
billion needed for Overseas Contingency
Operations (OCO). Originally authorized

RJ Matson

as an emergency fund for unforeseen
needs in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars,
OCO is now regularly used to pad baseline
Pentagon spending, says the California-
based organization Peace Action, which
describes the account as nothing more than
a “slush fund for the Pentagon,” notorious
for its lack of transparency.

How will we pay for our staggeringly
high defense bill? With staggering cuts,
of course. A New York Times (2/10/2020)
summary of the president’s proposed 4.2
trillion dollar budget for 2021 enumerates
the reductions: education (8%),
diplomacy (21%), housing and urban
development (15%) , transportation (13%),
environmental protection (26%), and the
CDC (16%). In an era when even the

(Continued on Page 2)

Price: For whatever it’s worth.

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Page 2

Defund

(Continued from Page 1)

THE CATHOLIC RADICAL

— $74 billion — to poor communities.
Barbara Lee, a Catholic-educated,
congresswoman from California is bolder.
Move $350 billion from the Pentagon’s
stash, she says, into diplomacy,
environmental protection, and programs
that meet the needs of the American

Boe ts ath tebe al
ra Cea ii
———»",\ « -)| people.

fo. in the US Congress.

A Black single mom on welfare at age
20, Lee got a master’s degree in social
work at UC Berkeley before serving
She has been an
unrelenting critic of our war-making

_| addiction, providing the lone vote, in

=| September 2001, against a resolution
As} authorizing President George W. Bush to
/1IN\ 2] use military violence in Afghanistan.

Even with the cumbersome,

\ 4 dfé@) bureaucratic language, HR 10003, Lee’s

Pentagon recognizes the climate crisis as
a global threat, the Trump administration
seeks to reduce Environmental Protection
Agency funding to 1990’s level — $6.7
billion or about ten percent of the military’s
notorious slush fund.

More than a ledger of income and
expense, a budget is a moral document.
It reveals what a country values. Judging
by the numbers, the US has, for decades,
treasured its war-making capacities.
Regardless of the political party in power,
massive military spending has remained
the unexamined assumption in our national
budget. Sacrosanct. Untouchable.

Then came a _ microscopic virus,
novel and deadly, and the poverty of our
investment was staggeringly exposed.
Our beloved homeland, NUMBER ONE!
in military spending, ranks first in the
world for COVID-19 deaths. We came to
realize we cannot bomb our way out of a
pandemic.

Change could be coming. This summer,
senators Ed Markey, Elizabeth Warren, and
Bernie Sanders, who denounced President
Trump’s 2021 budget as “of, for, and by
the 1%,” introduced an amendment to the
National Defense Authorization Act that
would redirect 10% of the Pentagon budget

Bill Mauldin

|} bill, is an exhilarating read. A people’s

declaration of independence from the
oppressive habit of giving the Pentagon
gobs of money, no questions asked:
Whereas, the Pentagon failed its first
ever agency wide audit in November 2018,
Whereas, the Pentagon continues to
reveal high levels of waste and fraud
including awarding a $7,000,000 cloud
contract to a I-person company, losing
track of $800,000,000 in construction
projects, spending $4,600,000 on crab and
lobster in an end-of-the-year spree. . .
Whereas, every hour taxpayers are
paying $32,080,000 for total cost of wars
since 2001, and these endless wars have
not made Americans safer or brought
democracy or Stability to the Middle

Vol. 37, No. 1

CATHOLIC

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August/September 2020

followed by a list of defense budget cuts.
On Lee’s chopping block is the OCO.

Yet more is required. In addition to
defunding the Pentagon, we need to
renounce our reliance on violent power.
How casually we have used it, flinging our
wars and weaponry far and wide oblivious
to the havoc caused. Some of that violence
has boomeranged. Now combat tactics and
the military’s excess weaponry infiltrate
our police departments, terrorizing poor
communities of color.

The police tactic of “no-knock”
warrants that killed 26-year-old Breonna
Taylor, a Black emergency room

technician in Louisville, Kentucky, had
its foreign expression in the night, raids
conducted by US soldiers in Iraq and
Afghanistan. Reading the details of Ms.
Taylor’s death, I remembered the actions
of US marines in the Iraqi city of Haditha.
On the hunt for militants, they too barged
into the homes of sleeping families and in
one, strafed the room where a baby slept.

If COVID-19 revealed the folly of our
massive expenditure on violent power,
the police killings of our Black brothers
and sisters brought home the human
consequence of that investment in ways
we cannot ignore. War, indeed oppresses
us all.

As of this writing, twenty US
representatives have signed on to Lee’s
resolution, well below the number needed
to ensure its implementation. Her bold
and necessary demand gives me hope,
nonetheless. The habits of empire are
hard to break, but they can and must be
relinquished. (2

August/September 2020

RADICAL

August/September 2020

THE CATHOLIC RADICAL

Page 3

Courage to Leap Into Darkness

n Stephen King’s movie “The Mist,”

horrifying monsters prowl a dense fog
that descends on a town in Maine. A few
survivors hunker down in a grocery store
which they fortify in an attempt to keep
the beasts out. When a mother demands
to leave so she can rescue her children,
the protagonist. a father, argues that going
outside is certain death. The woman
goes anyway. After the creatures begin
to breach their barricades, the father, his
son, and two others escape in a car. Some
time later, they run out of gas while their
vehicle is butted by abominations, some
gigantic, all grotesque. One of the car’s
occupants has a pistol with three bullets
and, after glimpsing one particularly nasty
creature, everyone agrees that a shot in
the head is more merciful than what the
monsters would do to them. The father
kills his son. Two others kill themselves,
and then, to the father’s shock, the fog lifts,
a relief column of trucks drives by and he
sees the mother with her children on the
back of one of them. If the father had only
waited three more minutes, his son and
companions would have been saved, but
how could he know?

The spiritual truth about profound risk-
taking is that we never know. Even Jesus
sweats blood in the Garden of Gethsemane,
because letting himself be crucified
seems an excruciating dead end. But, as
Christians, we know it was not. Like the
mother who braved the mist to save her
children, the person who risks everything
for others makes space for resurrection.

Long ago, a friend asked if I favored
abortion in the case of a desperately poor
mother likely to die in childbirth. When I
said, “Yes,” she replied, “Congratulations,
you just aborted Beethoven.”

God defies predictability. Biblical
characters, who would fail every job
interview, get top posts. Moses murdered
someone. Paul oversaw the stoning of
Saint Stephen. Dorothy Day aborted her
first child. But God called them to take a
leap of faith into unknown territory without
roadmaps or guarantees. Moses delivers the
children of Israel to the Promised Land. Saint

by Scott Schaeffer-Duffy

Paul evangelizes most of the Greek and
Roman world. Dorothy Day has another
child and co-founds the Catholic Worker.
Who would have thunk it?

In truth, God sends grace to accomplish
what God wills, but the initial leap of
faith is all on us. After a rich man lists his
good deeds, Jesus says, “One more thing
you need to do to be perfect: give away
all your possessions and come follow
me,” and the man goes away sad. He
doesn’t comprehend that the seemingly
self-destructive proposition is actually an
invitation to eternal happiness.

When Christ predicts that he must suffer
death, Peter objects and Christ scolds him,
“Get behind me, Satan.” Accepting a
cross runs against our grain, defies reason,
and seems absurd, but, according to Jesus,
it is the primary gate to paradise. “Unless
you take up your cross every day and
follow me, you cannot have eternal life.”

When our backs are to the wall, though,
texts like “Love your enemies,’ “Give to
those who beg of you,” and “Whatever
you do to the least, you do to me” seem
impossible. How can we love someone
threatening to kill us or, worse yet, our
children? How can anyone share food,
shelter, or even toilet paper, for crying out
loud, during a pandemic? How can we be
expected to be nonviolent with racism or
warfare on our doorsteps? How can we
juggle providing for our families, cutting
fossil fuels, welcoming migrants, _ re-
imagining the police, and accomplishing
countless other urgent needs?

In 1847, at a talk in Boston, when the
abolitionist Frederick Douglass expressed
despair that peaceful means could end
slavery, Sojourner Truth, a former slave
and abolitionist too, rose up from the back
of the assembly and bellowed, “Frederick,
Frederick! Is God dead?”

Now, as we realize that the enormous
bloodshed of the Civil War did not banish
racial subjugation of Black people in the
US, nonviolent anti-racism demonstrators
are demanding far deeper change than the
mere abolition of slavery. Holding fast to
nonviolence after the murder of George
Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many
others, requires a huge leap of faith, the
bearing of a formidably heavy cross.

Biblical scholar, Esau McCaully said it
well ina New York Times op-ed on June
15, 2020:

‘Jesus’ profound act of forgiving
his opponents provides me with the
theological resources to hope. Dare we
speak of hope when chants of ‘I can’t
breathe’ echo in the streets? Do we risk the
criticism commonly levied at Christians
that we move too quickly to hope because
faith pacifies? Resurrection hope doesn’t
remove the Christian from the struggle
for justice. It empties the state’s greatest
weapon — the fear of death—of its power.”

But make no mistake, when God calls
us to hold fast to hard teachings, it’s like
being invited to leap into a pitch-black,
freezing cold abyss with the irrational
hope that the Lord of Light will catch
us. Community can help, but taking up
a cross is more often than not a solitary
event. Franz Jagerstatter stood absolutely
alone in his opposition to service in
Hitler’s army. His parish priest and
bishop begged him to compromise. Daniel
Berrigan wrote during the Vietnam War,
“Today, despair is rational,’ but “hope is
a gift” whose “highest expression 1s in
irony.” Thankfully, researchers like Erica
Chenoweth have shown that victory is
much more likely for nonviolent than
violent movements. And yet, we still have
to take leaps of faith. God help us to do
just that whenever they’re called for. Q

Page 4

THE CATHOLIC RADICAL

August/September 2020

Post-COVID — a New Pentecost

hatever else we’ve been told about

the effects of COVID-19, we’ve
learned that nothing will be the same in
the future. ... Returning to a hopelessly
unequal, racist, and unjust world hurtling
toward the destruction of the planet is
simply not an option. And the challenge
applies to the Church as well. An enormous
opportunity has presented itself in the
evolution of humanity and of our Church.

In this modern era, we have not been
well-served by new “idols” — corporate
capitalism, exorbitant wealth in few hands,
power acquisition, success, celebrity
culture, widespread consumerism, youth
immortality, unbridled and unregulated
technological development. Have we too
often left behind not just our neighbor but
our collective soul? Have we forgotten that
we are made of spirit too?. . .

What sort of Church should we hope
for when things settle? One thing for sure
is there will not be a revival of church
attendance to any great extent in the
Western world. The model of clericalized
Church that most of us grew up with has
done its dash. It is over. . . . The facts are
staring us in the face. Many don’t want to
accept them. Pope Francis does. ... He
said at Easter the time was ripe for “new
imagination,’ allowing for “the breath
of the Spirit” to open new horizons. Our
Church needs to evolve into something
different, guided by the Spirit and become
more relevant and nourishing.

Because one model dies, that does
not mean everything dies. It means that
we will have to rebuild a Church that is
more relational, more community-based,
less hierarchical, more literate, more
empowering, more involved with ordinary
life, more lay-driven, based on dynamic
faith in the light of the Gospels.

That is the vision Vatican II challenged
us with more than 50 years ago. That is
the model circumstances now dictate we
need to further develop for our survival and
growth. If we listen carefully to “the signs of
the times” and want to survive as a Church
with a relevant message, we cannot delay

by Jim Consedine

any longer. The old model needs to move
over and let the shoots of a new one flower.

We also have to revisit the Vatican
If teaching on the Priesthood of the
Faithful. And the huge elephant in the
room — the continued discrimination
against women in ministry. We can no
longer continue to fly on one wing. The
current model of clericalized priesthood

and the male power structure is well past
its use-by date. It is time for a renewal of
the priesthood in our Church. We need a
Church where priests regardless of gender
are builders of community, servants of the
Word, nurturers of the needy, presiders at
liturgical gatherings, and leaders of local
communities.

Our current model of Church was
formed in patriarchal times. That formation
no longer serves us well. Women deserve
equality of opportunity to respond to their
vocational callings just as men do. It is a
question of God’s justice, a power of love
which sits at the heart of our Christian faith
and empowers our response. We need a
Church living the freedom of the Spirit and
committed to such development.

At its core, our future Church will be
a return to a deeper understanding of and
commitment to living the scriptures better.
The Beatitudes and the Corporal Works of
Mercy (feed the hungry, clothe the naked,
etc.) were the “penny-catechism” of the
early Church before most people were
literate and the Church became clericalized.
For the first 300 years, believers were
taught and encouraged to live these radical
Christian teachings which were central

to scripture and basic to their lives as
Christians. They learnt them by heart.

In a new post-COVID age, facing a
planet under threat as never before because
of human action, are we being called to
revisit these and other key fundamental
texts and apply them to life as the early
Christians did? Some of the great thinkers
and prophets in our spiritual history
started movements through their desire
to live these foundational teachings more
authentically.

Many religious orders came from such
an understanding of Christ’s teaching.
People saw the need of the poor and
responded. . . . Mohandas Gandhi was
greatly influenced by them, as were Mother
Teresa and Dorothy Day.

I spent part of my lockdown time
reading a 600-page book, Voices from the
Catholic Worker. It contains interviews
with hundreds of mainly younger people
who came to a committed understanding of
the Gospels and the Church through their
reflection on the Beatitudes. . . and their
desire to practice the Works of Mercy... .
Most have continued to live a committed
Christian faith while remaining part of the
Church, raising families, being involved
with community development, taking an
“option for the poor,” practicing hospitality,
struggling for more just social structures,
active peace-making, and witnessing to
Christ in the marketplace.

Another central foundation stone will
have to be to enflesh the 2015 vision of
Pope Francis in Laudato Si for a serious
involvement to preserve the health of our
planet. . . . If we consume at our current
levels, we continue to be part of the planet’s
sinful destruction. Our response as disciples
of Christ does not allow for this. ...

Haven’t we been presented with a
great opportunity? What is the Holy Spirit
asking us today? Q

Editor’s Note: Fr. Jim Consedine_ is from
New Zealand’s Thomas Merton Catholic
Worker. The full text is in the Pentecost
2020 issue of The Common Good.

August/September 2020 THE CATHOLIC RADICAL

Get Haunted by Racism!

A! the publisher’s request, Scott Schaeffer-Duffy’s book Haunted now includes
an introduction and postscript relevant to the Black Lives Matter movement.
Loaded with Black history focused on national and local champions of racial justice,
Haunted dispels the notion that racism ended on June 19, 1865 when the Emancipation
Proclamation was read to enslaved Blacks, or on July 2, 1964 when the Civil Rights ’ } — Bi 3
Act came into law, or on November 4, 2008 when Barack Obama became the first /
Black US president. Frequent lethal attacks by police against unarmed Black people
and overwhelming evidence of economic and political inequality between Black and
White Americans pushes the urgency to address structural racism.

Selina Gallo-Cruz, a professor of sociology at Worcester’s College of the Holy
Cross says:

Page 5

HAUNTED!

a Catholic Worker mystery

“Haunted takes you at once on a psychological and a sociological journey.
In this ghost story of historical detail, readers will contemplate how —unless
we can learn to recognize the specter of our own racism—the spirits of those
who lived before us may pass damning judgment on the more privileged lives
we live in their stead. Through the portals of very real and problematic race
records of Worcester, Massachusetts, Schaeffer-Duffy brings back to life
questions that once drove our city’s vibrant abolition movement: who in our
society has no choice but to fear the frightening specter of racial inequality
and who, therefore, is not daily haunted by the ongoing and irrepressible
legacies of racism?”

Nie "ae
rs iz iy. =

ne eee

If you liked Jordan Peele’s creative new genre, the sociological thriller, in his remarkable film “Get Out,” you’ll love Haunted.

Haunted retails for $14.95. At this critical time, it is offered for whatever you can afford. Order your copy at:
SS Francis & Thérese Catholic Worker, 52 Mason Street, Worcester, MA 01610 or theresecw2@gmail.com.

Agency (EPA) to adopt maximum limits
to perchlorate. In 2019, the Trump EPA
issued a proposal to raise the allowance of
perchlorate to 56 parts per billion—a level
that would be more than ten times higher
than most existing state regulatory levels.
On June 18, 2020, the EPA dropped all
federal limits and oversight of perchlorate.

Erik Olson of the Natural Resources
Defense Council advocacy group called the
EPA’s decision “illegal, unscientific, and
unconscionable.” The American Academy

(Ppp a ia ae i of Pediatrics called for the “strongest
Si ee Eee, hi Eu SRL b possible” federal limits on perchlorate.
ne omet I ne? to Remem er While every governmental action to
[a ae 2 e i allow harmful water and air pollution is
a ee | y 3 / fo. shocking, this one, to which pregnant

women and new parents have no recourse

erchlorate is a waste product from the
manufacture of rocket fuel, explosives,
and munitions. It dissolves easily into
water and cannot be removed by heating or
boiling. It causes brain damage in unborn
children and infants, dropping their IQ

significantly. At least 19 million Americans
have perchlorate in their drinking water.

In 2008, the Bush administration
pledged to restrict perchlorates, but reversed
course. In 2011, the Obama administration
ordered the Environmental Protection

to protect their children, is especially
upsetting. The EPA’s decision is sure to be
challenged in court, but we encourage our
readers to add this issue to their list of items
which need urgent rectification by future
administrations. 02

Page 6

cr

Dear Scott,
I LOVED this issue’s “Musings”! I am
right there with you, following the lead of
younger generations on the environment,
issues of identity, advocacy against
inequality and for a more just world.
Thank you so very much!
Maria Rodrigues
Brighton, Massachusetts

To Scott & Claire,
Your latest newsletter had just the
right tone—not too lachrymose nor too
hopeful, but REAL. I especially liked
the differing CW responses as it gave a
sense of community in both adversity
and diversity. Stay safe and well. I am
“cocooning” (as the Irish say) alone in
Evanston and am well cared-for by my
family.
Rosalie Riegle
Evanston, Illinois

Hi, Guys,
How are you guys doing with COVID-
19? I think of you and pray for you often.
We have been blessed that our Prime
Minister, Jacinda Ardern, acted quickly to
implement lockdown. It was a bold move
— one that will take a while to see if it
will have the desired effect. (Only one
death so far, but I suspect we will only
know in another week or so if it’s truly
nipped it in the bud.) She has gone to
great lengths to minimize the financial
strain on people — even taking a 20% pay
cut herself. (Admittedly, she still gets a
mind-boggling amount of money!)

Our main concern through this has been

THE CATHOLIC RADICAL

our Maori elders and all the knowledge
of lore they hold. Sorry. I’ve worded
that poorly. All elderly are our concern.
However, added to their selves is all the
knowledge they hold that could be lost
if they were to contract COVID-19 and
die. We can see so many aspects of our
culture being lost once we emerge from
this COVID cloud.

Closer to home is Charlie’s 82-year-old
mother. We have included her as being
part of our “bubble” and visit her every
second day, bringing food and cheer and
reminders not to go out shopping. It is so
hard for our strong, independent elders,
icons in the tribe, to have to stay home
and become dependent. She particularly
enjoys when we come later in the day and
are present for night prayers.

Charlie is supposed to be teaching his
students via the internet. It’s not really
working. The parents send a “like” and
that’s it!!! So, he’s found a bunch of hard-
copy work sheets laying around at home
(part of his “cleaning up’) and is making
packs to drop in letter-boxes on our way
to his mum’s. Where there’s a will, there’s
a way.

Meanwhile, never giving up faith in
seeds’ potential for life, I’ve still been
working on the garden. The birds and slugs
keep eating the seeds and seedlings, so it’s
hard getting a winter garden established
so late. However, the Maori greens are
tougher than the European ones — so,
yay. Things are finally looking hopeful.

Stay strong — Stay safe — Stay in
tune with God.

Sheri Waata
Whirinaki, New Zealand

Editor’s Note: By July 15, twenty-two
people died of COVID-19 in New Zealand,
4 deaths per million. New cases have all
but ended, and the country safely re-
opened. By July 15, 140,140 Americans
died of the virus, 423 deaths per million.

Dear Goodman Scott & Goodwoman Claire,
I read of the awful incident of the 75 -year-
old gentleman [Martin Gugino] who had
been knocked over [by a police officer at
a Buffalo, New York Black Lives Matter
protest] and left in the street. As a 76-year-
old man in fairly good shape, I could
only imagine how that must be. What I

August/September 2020

did not know was that Stephen Colbert
mentioned that Gugino was a Catholic
Worker. Like Senator Romney, I will
not dignify President Trump’s comment-
tweet on the incident. The sadness I feel
for this nation seems to get greater. I do
know there are good people—indeed—
heroes and heroines who restore my faith
in our human family.

I had promised a small gift to you when
my stimulus check came in and in honor
of the brave Mr. Gugino will give a bit
more now.

Phil Brewer
Rutland, Massachusetts

Editor’s Note: Among the many heroes and
heroines is Patrick Hutchinson, a Black
Lives Matter protester in London who
hoisted a beaten counter-demonstrator
onto his shoulders and carried him to
safety. Hutchinson's friends shielded them
from additional blows. Asked afterwards
why he helped a skinhead, Hutchinson
said: “I was just thinking of a human
being on the floor. It wasn't going to end
well had we not intervened. We did what
we had to do. We stopped somebody from
being killed.... If the other three police
officers that were standing around when
George Floyd was murdered had thought
about intervening, and stopping. their
colleague from doing what he was doing,
like what we did, George Floyd would be
alive today still.”

Dear Scott & Claire,
I hope you are staying well in this world.
Will it return to the old after the virus or
will we have learned from this time and
go on to a better relationship with nature
and each other?
Mary Ann Phillips
Southbridge, Massachusetts

Dear Friends,
The past few months have been disturbing,
challenging, and encouraging. We are
simultaneously dealing with the COVID-
19 virus and increasing awareness of
our country’s racist history and ongoing
Systemic racism. Cell phones and social
media have shined a powerful light upon
police violence directed against people of
color.

Donald Trump’s election emboldened

August/September 2020

racist actions but it also encouraged many
White people to educate themselves about
colonialism, racism, white supremacy and
privilege. A discussion about restructuring
the police is now taking place.

Trump is a master at dividing people
and confusing issues. It is tempting to
list our complaints about the Trump
administration. However, the crises facing
the US today cannot be solved by simply
putting Democrats in the White House.

Too many people are feeling hopeless
and beginning to believe that voting will
not help. That even if Trump should lose
the election, he will not concede defeat
and leave. Thirty million people have lost
their jobs. An entire generation is being
told that the gig economy is their only
option. The pandemic exposed the faults
of a for-profit health care system. But
we have not yet seen the full economic
consequences of this pandemic. It will get
worse, probably much worse.

We cannot be immobilized by fear.
We must take the time to dream. To
imagine a world where people’s needs
and the environment are valued more
than money. We encourage our friends not
to give up hope for a world in which all
people have social and economic justice,
for a democracy where every adult
has an automatic right to vote, where
corporations and _ billionaires cannot
make unlimited financial contributions to
bought-off politicians.

Social change happens when things
get really lousy. We have the possibility
of making needed pivotal change. It is
not time to be silent. Not all of us are able
to join demonstrations, but everyone can
do something. Talk to your neighbors.
Expect that you will not agree on
everything. Listen. Ask questions. Find
common ground. Write letters to elected
representatives and newspapers. Connect
with local groups. Get active in unions.

Changing the occupant of the White
House and putting more Democrats into
Congress is a necessary first step, but
effective change starts from the bottom.
Make noise. Follow up. Do not hesitate
to get involved. If we stop reaching for
justice, we lose it. History is being made
every day. What is your role?

Phil Stone & Katie Green
Dunedin, Florida

THE CATHOLIC RADICAL

Allegorical Oracle 5/5/20

by Michael Caldwell

Page 7

Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters;
And you that have no money, come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Isaiah 55.1

h where, Voice of the Wind, is leadership for We the People?

And where is the system
that gives millions of unclaimed Idaho potatoes to hungry Chicagoans,
that signs an executive order, directs trucks to pick up and deliver?

Where is the leadership and where is the system

that collects unmarketable milk before it is dumped in manure pits
and delivers it to the one in seven food-insecure children

in the richest nation in history?

Where is the leadership and where is the system

that puts We the People money into the salvation of the U.S. Postal Service,
panned as “a joke” by the leader but needed desperately for democracy

for voting safely, remotely, in time of historic pandemic,

that puts the money wasted in twelve hundred dollar checks

to half the people, like me, who don’t need it,

into saving the post office?

Where is the leadership and where is the system
that doesn’t require voters and election officials to risk their lives to vote
like Wisconsin in April’s sham primary”?

Where is the leadership and where is the system
that pays some EMTs— who have no health insurance —
who risk their lives as first responders
more than thirty seven thousand dollars a year in total full-time salary in rich New York?

Where is the leadership and where is the system

that nonviolently and vigorously rejects the National Defense Authorization Act of 2020,
that increases rather than decreases nuclear weapons production

in an already grotesquely morbidly obese Defense Department budget,

that puts it on a diet, to redirect urgently needed funds to education and health?

With Isaiah, Republican President General Dwight Eisenhower said sixty years ago:
Every warship launched, every rocket fired, takes food from the mouths of the hungry.

With Yeshua of Nazareth, Pope John XXIII said in the sixties:
Why should the resources of human genius and the riches of the people turn more often
to preparing arms than to increasing the welfare of all classes of citizens and the poor? @2

ag S6actrD.
PCAIARO GRO

Catholic Worker Calendar

August 12, 26, September 9, 23— Evening Prayer: Weather permitting, join
us at evening prayer and Taize chant in our backyard with suitably-distanced
chairs and face masks. 6:30 P.M. 52 Mason Street. Refreshments to follow.

Page 8

THE CATHOLIC RADICAL

August/September 2020

Mason Street Musings

ike many Americans on COVID

lockdown, we too planted with a
vengeance last spring. Our squatter’s lot
is now an explosion of lush and tangled
green. Craters of broccoli, kale, and
collard. Eruptions of basil.

The oregano bush, a piteous cluster
of brittle twigs that I took for dead last
winter, has leapt its box to march on mint
and asters. The green beans seeded on
opposite sides of a fence have crested their
barrier to entwine in each other’s seductive
tendrils.

The garden is a lot like my life, crowded
and unruly. We do not have manicured
crops, but a horde of rambunctious
vegetation always clamoring for weeding,
pruning, and watering.

“Too much work,’ I think. Then
sometimes, usually in the evening when
the leaves have lost their noonday droop
and stretch expectantly for the coming
moonlight, I will stop to marvel at the
mystique of an eggplant or the grandiosity
of a zucchini and wonder how growth
happens. What is the molecule-upon-
molecule process that transforms a tiny

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puckered ball, musty yellow, into a
flowering vine where white blossoms
become sweet peas?

The German mystic and visionary
Hildegard of Bingen called it viriditas, the
greening power of God.

Our neighbor Joel Betts, who works
for the Worcester County Conservation

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year. My nephew Jesse Kenworthy and
former seminarian Brian Ashmankas
also assist. Both are here for the summer
to experience Catholic Worker life. “It’s
mostly chopping vegetables,” I warned.
Scott and I are glad for Jesse’s
and Brian’s presence, and the sense of
community that they bring.
Early this month, Joel and his fiancée

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Laura drove out to Michigan for a two-
week vacation. He felt conflicted about
leaving the garden during a time of
voracious growth and phoned one Sunday
to see how the plants were faring. Had I
harvested any of the red flowering beans’?
How about the zucchini? One was already
four inches long before he left, so he
wondered.

The day Joel called, the number of
new COVID cases in Florida climbed to
15,000. The news reported on the death
of a young Texan, a man in his thirties.
Believing the disease to be a hoax, he
attended a “COVID-19 party” then later
died. “I think I made a mistake,” he said.

In such times, we are desperate to
know of life, to hear details of its reliable
fecundity. Maybe that is why Joel phoned
me from half way across the country for a
garden update.

The backyard has become our open-
air living room where we host visitors.
Everyone masked, of course. Our former
guest A. who eats with us twice a week
takes his supper on the bench overlooking
the garden. Communal Evening Prayer is
said in a circle of folding chairs arranged
on a bumpy patch of grass.

Animated conversation invariably
follows the liturgy — a movie review,
an update on Teresa’s ailing mother, or
a rant about the idiocy of our current
administration.

It was during one of these heated
talks that Fred quietly asked if anyone
could recommend a book on African
American history. He had just watched
a documentary on the 1920 Tulsa race
riots and wanted to know more. Eighty-
seven years old and Irish American to
the core, Fred wondered why he was
never told about the decimation of Tulsa’s
Greenwood neighborhood, also known as
the Black Wall Street. The event and its
omission from history books had him re-
thinking what it means to be American.

I later marveled at Fred’s curiosity still
vibrant in his ninth decade, his instant
willingness to re-arrange worldview to
include the overlooked. Now there’s
growth, the greening of conscience and
heart. Blessed Summer! Claire